Elizabeth Holmes barred from federal health programs for 90 years
Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced and incarcerated founder of the infamous blood-testing startup Theranos—is barred from participating in federal health programs for nine decades, according to an announcement from the health department Friday.
The exclusion means that Holmes is barred from receiving payments from federal health programs for services or products, which significantly restricts her ability to work in the health care sector. It also prevents her from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs. With a 90-year term, the exclusion is lifelong for Holmes, who is currently 39.
The exclusion was announced by Inspector General Christi Grimm of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General.
Holmes is serving an 11-year, three-month sentence for defrauding investors of her blood-testing startup, Theranos, which she founded in 2003. At the time, Holmes claimed to have developed proprietary technology that could perform hundreds of medical tests using just a small drop of blood from a finger prick. The remarkable claim helped her drive the company's valuation to a stunning $9 billion in 2014, and set up lucrative partnerships. But, in reality, the technology never worked. The company collapsed in 2018, and she was convicted of fraud in 2022.
And yet…. Antivaxxers walk free.
And the Sacklers' walk free.
I read that as in she is unable to work or research, in the medical field, not as a patient.
She is an absolute psychopath and should be jailed for life.
I honestly believe that this (what she did) happens all of the time. But she was too young, too female, to get away with it.
I suspect we won’t see any more consequences in the future for most people. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Too young, white, and female? You mean the least incarcerated demographic in the USA?
It's surely not because she's a fake voiced sociopath who got the hopes up of millions of patients and healthcare workers alike... falsely representing technology to defraud millions of investors...
Nope... Definitely because she's a middle aged woman lol.
Echoes of Martha Stewart.
This is pretty unfair imo. I don't think she would going to used them, but still.
It's unclear what they mean by "participate" in this context. The sentence right before that is talking about being barred from receiving payments from federal health programs, so I'm wondering if they mean "participating" on the provider's side, rather than the patient's.
Don't really care enough to look into it though.
From the official OIG website:
https://oig.hhs.gov/newsroom/news-releases-articles/hhs-oig-issues-notice-of-exclusion-to-founder-and-ceo-of-theranos-inc/
I could see it argued both ways. It looks like this is meant to prohibit her from working with or receiving payment from any group in this sector.
From the wording it's difficult to tell if this means she also won't be able to be reimbursed for her own personal healthcare costs by any of these programs.
And if anyone really wants to get into the legalese: https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title11/1128.htm
It's not about fair, it's about sending the message that you don't fuck with rich people's money, especially not in a way that publically embarrasses them.
Justice is not swift.
Taylor is though
Hard to move fast when you're blind
She will still get benefits, every inmate gets benefits even though the care you receive in prison is low quality it's still cruel and unusual to not give prisoners access to at least minimal health care needs. A case like that wouldn't even make it to the supreme court. She just can't receive payments or work for a company that receives payments from those services.